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*Right now we should be somewhere around Upper Pisang on the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal*

The Statistics

Number of days spent in country – 5

Cities/towns visited – Wadi Musa (Petra), Wadi Rum

Number of different lodgings – 2

Flights – 0

Bus journeys – 3

Boat rides – 0

Combi/collective/taxi journeys – 5

Days of rain – 0

The Budget

Total US dollar amount spent – $603.57

Average cost per day, per person -$60.36

Average lodging cost per night, per person – $14.29 We only stayed in one hotel (3 nights) and our 4th night was spent in the desert outside of Wadi Rum as part of a Bedouin overnight trip. We had our own room/bathroom with just a fan in Wadi Musa (Petra), which was totally fine since the temperature drops significantly at night. Breakfast was included.

Average food/drink cost per day, per person – $12.50. Breakfast was included at the hotel, and they offered a great packed lunch service for about $5 which we took with us every day to Petra, and on the day we left since we had such a long bus ride to get to Amman for our flight. During our desert trip, dinner and breakfast were included. We ate dinner out the other nights, at local budget restaurants.

The Best

Petra. It’s just awesome. This was the main reason we came to Jordan, and we were not disappointed by these ruins. It’s got a hefty price tag, but it was worth it. Do yourself a favor and spend at least 2 days exploring the site, but skip the ‘Petra by Night’.

The Treasury at Petra

The Worst

Wadi Rum and the Bedouin Meditation Camp. We kept hearing about how great a trip to Wadi Rum was, and how we just had to go and spend a night in a Bedoiun camp. I believe the words “magical” were used. Yeah, well, we didn’t get it. The deal is you take a fairly standard jeep tour of the area, then you kick back for the evening at a Bedouin style camp, have dinner, and sleep under the stars. These trips don’t come cheap. The desert was nice enough, but not much different from some of the other desert landscapes we’ve seen. Our guide was less than interactive, which was a huge bummer, and the camp itself was filthy with leftover food from the last trip rotting on the tables and counters, half-drunk water bottles strewn about in the sand, and used tissues littering the seating area.

The best part was sleeping out under the stars, which really is pretty awesome and on a clear night you can see basically the entire universe. For the price, nearly $60 per person for less than 24 hours, we just didn’t think it was worth it.

To be perfectly honest, the other major problem we had, even in the very short 5 days, was the way I (Ashley) was treated by many of the men we encountered. In the 110 degree heat, I wore long pants, and a long sleeve button up shirt the entire time. Despite this, I was leered at nearly constantly, with the exception of when we were inside Petra. In addition, many men did things like wink and lick their lips at me, or made mildly obscene comments as they passed me. All of this was done right in front of Justin, who was angered, but didn’t really know what to do to stop it. I want to point out that not EVERY man we crossed paths with behaved this way, but it was enough that I was ready to leave on day 3.

On the first day, we shared a taxi from the border of Israel, to Wadi Musa (a 3 hour drive into the desert where Petra is located) with two single girls, one of whom chose to sit in the front seat for the long ride since she is prone to motion-sickness. At one point the driver reached over to her and began to stroke her hair and her neck, and we had to ask him to pull over so she could switch seats with Justin who was with me in the back. She too was in a long skirt and long sleeved shirt. It was wildly inappropriate, and I found it very bold that he would behave this way with all of us, including Justin, in the car. We would have gotten a new taxi if we hadn’t been out in the middle of nowhere.

I was disappointed by these situations and felt a bit defeated, especially since we’d heard so many lovely things about Jordan.

It was a bummer. We’ve been talking about it again recently and we wonder if we were travelling in a different way (meaning, not on a tiny backpacker budget) if we might have had a different experience.

Thanks so much for doing these country round-ups. They are so informative and we will definitely use them in our upcoming Middle East travels. Your stories are so interesting, too. So you think Petra is the only stop we should make in Jordan? We should be there late October or November. Thanks again for these awesome posts! Take care! :)

Glad you like them! So, I think there’s probably a bit more to Jordan than we managed to get to in 5 days. If you’ve never spent a night in the desert that might be worth it for you, but i’d choose your company really really carefully. Also, if you don’t get to Israel, you can also go float in the Dead Sea on the Jordan side. Aqaba is sometimes hailed as a fun seaside place to go, but really it looked like an overpriced border town to me.

When I was in Jordan I got so sick of the harassment, I decided to buy a hijab and abaja and dress like the many other Jordanian ladies. And guess what? It made no difference whatsoever. It’s deeprooted in the partriarchal system of Jordan, which 7iber explains in her blog:

Solo female visitors to Jordan are considered “easy meat”, no matter how much you cover yourself. Jordan is a conservative, traditional country with a patriarchal system (parts of Amman being an exception to this rule).
No Jordanian male would ever touch a Jordanian female, so avoid this, however friendly it may seem (e.g. plenty of google pictures of locals with their arm around a female tourist: very inappropriate!). They know what they are doing and that it is wrong i.e. disrespectful.

Never sit in the front seat of a taxi, no eye contact and no friendly conversation: that’s how females get about in Jordan (if not accompanied by a male family member).

And avoid booking with unlicensed travel agencies. If they do not have the license number of the Ministry of Tourism on their website, forget them. They are unlicensed for a reason (unprofessional, no education in tourism etc.). Those that are licensed are very professional, as they risk loosing their license if the tourist files a complaint with the Ministry of Tourism.

And do not think you will be safe booking with a non-local female (e.g. European, who set up travel business/married a local), because that is no guarantee for your safety at all. Some of these women are messed up or unstable.

To’ add to advice for female travelers in Jordan. If you are physically harassed, contact the police immediately. Even the slightest bit of harassment is taken seriously as women’s safety is another intricacy of the patriarchal system and threats to that safety are not tolerated. This is a situation where ignoring the harassment or laughing, smiling politely and shrugging it off is the least appropriate response because it implies tacit acceptance or even enjoyment of the ‘attention.’ A cold, hard stare or a quick, loud ‘stop that’ or ‘no’ can also do the trick. Say it like you mean it and have no regrets. Male companions, it is absolutely appropriate for you to react to harassment as well. A man who harasses a woman ‘under your protection’ is subtlety disrespecting you, too. Armed with this knowledge, a visit to Jordan can be a fascinating experience of a time and attitude that no longer exists in most European and North American spaces. Good luck!